The Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bayelsa State Council, Tonye Yemoleigha has commended the Niger Delta Development Commission for lighting up Bayelsa.
He also thanked the board for indulging in other corporate social responsibilities, especially in the education sector, which he said will help and uplift the region later in life.
Speaking on Thursday in Yenagoa when the council paid a courtesy call on Godknows Alameiseigha, the state representative and Director of NDDC, Yemoleigha maintained that Operation Light Up Bayelsa was a welcomed development.
He, however, pleaded with the board to do more, especially in the rural communities, maintaining that because their presence is not all that felt in the rural communities, it seems that they are not doing more.
He promised more collaboration with the board, adding that the relationship will go a long way to sanitizing the society.
He said:” The job of the media is to hold political office holders and the government to account and to also highlight their achievements so that development can be felt by the people.
“We owe it as a duty to report criminal activities and partner with security agencies to see how we can reduce criminality, and that is what we have been doing in our engagement.
“We are all pointing in the direction of development, including NDDC, and it is only when we have that understanding and synergy that we will do a lot together for the good of our people.
“We will deepen this relationship, and we ask our people to always be law-abiding and own projects. When you see one, be it projects from government or interventionist agencies like NDDC, you don’t need to vandalize them.
“While everybody is talking development in your community, you shouldn’t be the one to take away development from you community.”
Speaking earlier, the state director of Nigeria Delta Development Commission, Bayelsa State, Godknows Alameiseigha had asked the media to help in sensitizing the populace on the need to secure projects sighted in their domains.
He said that it is only when the citizens do so that projects will be started and finished, adding that some parts of the projects are always removed before they are completed
Maintaining that NDDC projects are not always abandoned but stalled, he said that some of those issues arise because of constant change of baton in the board, stating that the current managing director should be allowed to stay and do more.
Thanking President Bola Tinubu for appointing Samuel Ogbuku as the managing director of NDDC, he asked for more synergy between the board and the Bayelsa State Government to enable them to achieve the aim of developing the state.
He said, “We should educate our people on the need to own our projects and not vandalize the projects. Look at this operation light up Bayelsa, could you believe that people are going to remove the solar lights.
“Our people can’t go to rural communities now for that project because militants are on the river.”
He pleaded with the state and local government to look after the projects already sited by NDDC, maintaining that after building, the projects are always handed over to the state and local governments to manage.
Maintaining that NDDC can’t handle all the projects with only 164 billion naira that is yearly allocated to the state, he called on the state government to collaborate with the board so that most of these projects can be initiated and actualized.
“State Government should advise which community should have what project. Our National Assembly members should also try their best to add that boards should be allowed to stay for some time before being dissolved instead of changing them at intervals.
“We should forget our party affiliations and come together, form a synergy to build our state.
“I commission you Journalists today to be project monitoring ambassadors. Help us to monitor these projects and sensitize the populace so that the society will be a better place to stay.”
